Magic On the Track

By Ellie McGrath/Seoul

The scene at Olympic stadium was like a pointillist tableau. Huge white parasols rested on the green infield, ready to shield athletes from the autumn sun. White doves left over from the opening ceremony strutted on the grass while athletes stretched languidly. Then a Korean in white blazer and gloves climbed up a ladder and fired a pistol. The points began to blur: legs pumped, iron heaved skyward, bodies shot forward.

Track and field, the quintessential Olympic sport, began with a weekend that saw excellence both extended and ended. The world's best woman athlete, American Jackie Joyner-Kersee, piled up 7,291 points in the heptathlon to break her own world record and win Olympic gold. Ben Johnson of Canada once again proved that he is the fastest man on earth by setting a new world record of 9.79 in the 100 meters. Florence Griffith Joyner won going away in the women's 100 meters. But Edwin Moses, heavily favored in the 400-meter hurdles, ran a poor third and lost his grip on a sport that he has dominated for a decade.

With a full complement of East bloc countries on hand for the first time in eight years, a bundle of Olympic records were set. Jozef Pribilinec of Czechoslovakia won the 20-km walk in 1:19:57, breaking the old record by more than 3 min. Mop-top Khristo Markov of Bulgaria hopped, skipped and soared to a triple-jump record of 57 ft. 9 1/2 in., while American favorite Willie Banks placed sixth. East Germany's Ulf Timmermann threw the shot put 73 ft. 8 3/4 in. for an Olympic record, and Randy Barnes of the U.S. placed second.

But these events were largely a sideshow to the men's 100 meters. The rivalry between Carl Lewis, 27, the quadruple gold medalist in Los Angeles, and Ben Johnson, 26, began a year ago at the world championships in Rome. There Johnson set a new world record, leaving Lewis in his jet stream. Lewis was no more graceful losing in Rome than he was winning in Los Angeles: Johnson, he said, jumped the gun.

The two arrived at Seoul's fast track about as friendly as Iran and Iraq. Johnson, who seems to glower with power even in repose, had declared, "I want to win an Olympic gold medal. After that I don't care -- Carl Lewis could beat me 100 times." For his part, Lewis was on his semi-best behavior. "A number of people can win," he declared beforehand, his mother Evelyn sitting by his side. During the heats, Lewis' times were faster. Johnson, who had been hobbled earlier in the year by a hamstring injury, did not look good. But was he pulling up -- or pulling a fast one?

The 100 meters takes about as much time to run as some people spend tying their shoelaces. So the application of strategy is lightning quick. These two runners are as different as a firecracker and a long fuse. Johnson has an explosive start and eventually decelerates; Lewis starts more slowly and builds. As the gun went off last week, Johnson burst out of the blocks, seized the lead, and held it. Lewis, on the other hand, got a characteristically slower start, but instead of accelerating past his adversary, he looked to his right three times, always to see Johnson in front of him. Before he even crossed the finish line, Big Ben raised his index finger to signal that he was still No. 1. Carl Lewis had run faster than in Rome -- but lost by more.

The race was historic in more ways than one. It was the first time that a world record in the 100 had been set at an Olympics. Even in defeat, Lewis had achieved a new American record of 9.97 sec. In addition, Britain's Linford Christie and Calvin Smith from the U.S. also dipped under 10 sec., marking the first time four runners had bested that benchmark in a single race. When it was over, Lewis had little to say about Johnson. "I'm pleased with my performance," he maintained. "It's time to move on to the next event." For Johnson, however, the Olympics are over. And he has more than enough to savor. "The important thing was to beat Carl," he said. "Anyone can set a world record, but the gold medal is mine."

Like Johnson, Jackie Joyner-Kersee, 26, wanted a gold medal more than anything else. Ever since she missed it in Los Angeles by only five (out of 6,390) points, she has dominated the heptathlon and dreamed unceasingly of an Olympic victory. As the only woman ever to top 7,000 points in this seven- sport event -- a mark she had already surpassed four times -- she seemed assured of victory. Said her husband and mentor, Bob Kersee: "Coaching her is very hard. She wants to be so perfect."

Joyner-Kersee started well, bringing in a personal best in the 100-meter hurdles. But in the high jump she strained a tendon in her left knee and scored poorly. Still, she managed a second in the shot put and a first in the 200-meter dash. After the first day she was 103 points behind her world-record pace but well ahead of her East German competitors.

Next day, with her knee tender but intact, Joyner-Kersee enthusiastically attacked her specialty. Leaping only once, she set a personal best in the heptathlon long jump, an Olympic record of 23 ft. 10 1/4 in. After a somewhat disappointing javelin throw, Joyner-Kersee knew that if she could run under 2:13.67 in the final event, the 800 meters, she could set a new world record. She shyly smiled up at the crowd, then took off. As she crossed the finish line in 2:08.51, another personal best, she clasped her hands above her head in triumphant thankfulness.

Joyner-Kersee then started readying herself for more competition. Despite the drain of her record heptathlon effort, she said, "I can't let it affect what I do in the long jump." Looking beyond Seoul, she sees the heptathlon for another couple of years and may take up racing in the hurdles. Noted Kersee: "I think she could break the world record in the 400-meter hurdles. For some reason she likes playing in the sand, and I think going over barriers is better."

Florence Griffith Joyner, 28, Jackie's sister-in-law, coveted a different title: world's fastest woman. She first laid claim to it by running a 10.49 world record at the Olympic 100-meter trials in July. But she wanted to underscore her supremacy in international competition. Griffith Joyner spent the weeks before the Olympics training at the Nihon Aerobics Center in Japan, a serene spot where the infield of the track is a rock garden. The center's director was so taken with Florence that he held a Buddhist ceremony to give her special power. It didn't hurt.

The flamboyant Flo-Jo, as fans call her, is the only athlete whose fingernail colors are as striking as her times. Famous for her sexy, one- legged tights, she appeared at her heats and semifinals wearing a racy, hooded bodysuit. The aerodynamics may have helped: on her first sprint she ran 10.88 to better Evelyn Ashford's Olympic record. When Ashford, looking sleek and fast, equaled that time in her semifinal, Flo countered by running 10.62 in her next heat. Although her rivalry with Griffith Joyner is not as public as Lewis' and Johnson's, Ashford battled fiercely to retain her gold medal. But Flo-Jo was awesome in the final match-up, accelerating all the way to beat Ashford by at least six meters.

Florence and Jackie were not the only ones to bring new maturity to their sports. The first gold medal awarded in track and field went to Rosa Mota of Portugal, who won the women's marathon in 2:25:39. While the hot and humid conditions made a new record unlikely, the race was a lot more exciting than Joan Benoit's solitary romp through the streets of Los Angeles in the first- ever women's marathon four years ago. Mota, 30, ran most of the race in the pack. Never, in fact, have so many women run together so fast, so far. When Mota broke away after 23 miles, Australian Lisa Martin and East German Katrin Dorre were too tired to follow. Afterward the diminutive Mota noted, "Last year in Rome, I ran almost all the race by myself. This time I could see the competition."

In terms of maturity, though, time seemed to tell at last on Edwin Moses, 33, who lost his bid for a third gold medal in the 400-meter hurdles. Moses, who freely admits that he is an old man in a young man's sport, won his first gold medal in Montreal, his second in Los Angeles, and had the U.S. not boycotted the 1980 Olympics, might have won three straight. But the owner of track's longest win streak, who got off to a good start this time, seemed to run out of gas in the last 100 meters. Just ahead, his U.S. teammate Andre Phillips held off Senegal's Amadou Dia Ba at the wire to set a new Olympic record of 47.19 sec. "When the race is over," Moses said later from the sidelines, "that's when you know you can't do it." But the bronze medalist -- whom Phillips praised as "my motivation, my incentive, my idol" -- insisted he would not quit the sport.

Another aging American star also seemed to fade in Seoul's autumn light. America's best middle-distance runner ever, Mary Decker Slaney, 30, failed once again to win an Olympic gold medal. In her 3,000-meter heat, she gave everyone a surrealistic dose of deja vu by nearly tripping as she had in Los Angeles when she got her feet tangled with South African-born Zola Budd. Her time qualified her for the final, but did not put her in strong contention. In the deciding race she led the pack for several laps but faded long before the end to finish an embarrassing tenth in a field of ten. Slaney, who has another chance this week in the 1,500 meters, vows she'll be back in 1992. "It's frustrating not to have an Olympic medal, but that's not what motivates me," she says. "It's just liking what I do." That, after all, is the real point of the Olympics.